Ho Chi Minh City Customs officers inspect imported materials for export processing. Photo: T.H

Main objective is now to check records

In 2021, due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, Ho Chi Minh City Customs suspended post-clearance audits at enterprises’ offices, under the guidance of the General Department of Customs. The post-clearance audit has mainly focused on operations such as, strengthening collections, improving the review and analysis of information and data on key products, identifying loopholes in customs clearance and highlighting inadequacies of the policy.

In addition, the Post- Clearance Audit Branch has focused on implementing Decision 3450, which will assign the post-clearance audit plan and assess legal compliance in 2021. Accordingly, the unit specifically assigned 22 enterprises to each customs team to make implementation plans for. Moreover, the branch has developed projects on processing information, strengthening inspection, determining origin, fighting fraud and labeling infringements of intellectual property rights.

Since early this year, the branch has focused on deploying assigned projects on post-clearance audit, collecting information on the Customs database, minimizing the inspection at the enterprise's headquarters and only focused on post-clearance audits for cases with clear violations.

In 2021, Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department carried out more than 60 post-clearance audits, mainly at the Customs office, generating VND 25 billion in revenue year-on-year, up 33% in quantity. However, the amount of tax arrears decreased by nearly 5%.

When performing the post-clearance audit, the Customs agency has always notified and guided enterprises to understand and comply with the process. However, some businesses take advantage of the new policy on delayed submission or fail to provide accurate records, significantly affecting the professional activities of the Customs.

In the remaining months of the year, the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department will step up the collection, review and analysis of information and data in many key areas, under the direction of the General Department of Customs.

Reforming post-audit work

Out of 60 cases of post-clearance audit in the first 11 months of 2021, there are 23 cases related to export processing and manufacturing.

Director of the Post- Clearance Audit Branch, Nguyen Duc Khanh, said, “in the field of processing and manufacturing for export, Ho Chi Minh City Customs inspected and collected tax in the previous year for many large-scale enterprises. Since, businesses have better complied with customs regulations. For these audits the branch has mainly focused on new areas, such as enterprises importing and processing cashew nuts and export manufacturing enterprises.

The Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department said in order to improve the efficiency of post-clearance audits, the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department should continue to develop plans in four major areas, such as, checking codes for violating high-risk items and commodities, checking the value of high-value/high-tax items, checking tax policies on duty-free goods and reforming post-clearance audits.

To prevent the Covid-19 pandemic and create favorable conditions for enterprises' business activities, Customs branches have focused on consultation and completing post-clearance audit within 60 days. In addition, to collect and handle tax arrears from post-clearance audits, the Ho Chi Minh City Customs has strengthened 10-year overdue tax debt collections, delivering fines to those who violate agreements.